UK Times Update: UN Climate Scientist Dr. Mike Hulme: Scientists who vilified a colleague for advising a think-tank are ‘blind to their own biases’
Hulme condemned climate scientists who 'believe it’s their role to pass public judgment on whether a scientific colleague should offer advice to political, public or a campaigning organisations and to harass that scientist until they ‘fall into line’. He added that the episode said much about how politicised climate science had become and “how some scientists remain blind to their own biases”.
Prof Mike Hulme, Professor of Climate and Culture at King’s College London, said:
“The publishers of the journal concerned, IOP, express astonishment that the story of this rejected manuscript made front-page news. Of course it’s perfectly normal for scientific papers to be rejected for a whole variety of good reasons. But the reason it made front-page news in this case was because of the previous pressure brought to bear on Professor Bengtsson, from a variety of quarters including from other climate scientists, which made him resign his position as an academic advisor to the GWPF think-tank. This is the real story here: why certain climate scientists believe it’s their role to pass public judgement on whether a scientific colleague should offer advice to political, public or a campaigning organisations and to harass that scientist until they ‘fall into line’.
“This episode tells us a lot about how deeply politicised climate science has become, but how some scientists remain blind to their own biases.”
